


Gloriosa Generosa

by WaltzQueen



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Cloud Strife's A+ parenting, Gen, Implied Mpreg, Pigtail Pulling, Sephiroth's A+ parenting, Vincent Valentine Is Sephiroth's Parent, its bother cloud o'clock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:36:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24800125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaltzQueen/pseuds/WaltzQueen
Summary: The child standing between the planet and Sephiroth's imminent destruction of said planet.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 34
Kudos: 219





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Children Are Everything](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24747355) by [Rellanka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Rellanka). 



Gloriosa Strife has both heard and lived the adage 'it takes a village to raise a child.' There are a dozen aunts and uncles with whom she shares no blood relation and they all live in the same place. Or, they all have a house there.

  
Her Dad says he grew up here and that her Father burned everything down, which is why all the buildings are new. Father insists that you need to break old things to make new things; all that was burned was a sacrifice to make her Dad more than he was. She still wishes she could have seen what things were like before the fire. Dad makes it sound ....interesting. The people sound mostly banal and unimportant but the charred foundations of the past still intrigue her. She'll often lay on her stomach in the summer grass, tracing her fingers around the outlines of burnt wood and scattered bits of charred bone at the edge of town, where rebuilding fell by the wayside. She she can feel the monument to Old Nibelheim paying attention to her when she does that. Grandpa Vincent and Uncle Barret always go quiet when she mentions it. Aunt Tifa says it's probably her Nanna who was killed by Father and burned with the village.

  
Nanna died in Old Nibelheim and Dad never knew his dad but it's fine. Father's Mother, Jenova is undying. Father says she's a part of him and Dad and her. Gloriosa doesn't quite understand how her grandmother is a part of her outside of the usual way, but she laughs whenever Dad hears him saying it and he makes his frustrated face. Father says he had a father, named Hojo, that she's never allowed to see. Dad says that Father's mother and father's names are Vincent and Lucrecia. Father always gets a funny look and says he'll explain when she's older and defeated her first army. She thinks it'll be a while because Dad always frowns and goes out to fight monsters without Father when Father says it.

  
She and Dad start to take trips away from home once Gloriosa is five and strong enough to lift Fenrir off of herself if anything happens. Dad wants her to see the Planet. Father takes her flying regularly but Dad says it isn't the same. He's right but Glori's not sure if it's better. The people outside of Nibelheim aren't her Aunts and Uncles like the people at home are. Everyone seems to stare at her. In Nibelheim there isn't a lot of electricity so the whine of it in every building in Midgar is awful. She doesn't tell Dad since he seems so happy to be visiting but she feels Father's commiseration in her mind even across the planet and it's soothing that she's not alone. Even with the dreadful noise she can hear the sounds of people in the streets talking about her.

  
"That's Sephiroth's kid, just look at her!" "Remember what he did to ShinRa?" "Is she gonna go nuts next?" "Planet! Those eyes are freaky" "Maybe we should put her down while we still can." "Is she looking this way?"

  
It's annoying. Aunt Tifa and Aunt Yuffie warned her that people would be like that outside of home but that it was because they were afraid of Father. They're right to be afraid, Father is just as strong as Dad and Dad is the strongest person that was ever human. Father is a God and so is she, but Dad was human once, which is why he had a mother that was able to die. Perhaps they should be more afraid of Dad. After all he was the one who was able to meet a god on equal footing. She doesn't really understand people enough to suppose who they are more afraid of. She doesn't understand them like Dad understands Fenrir. She just understands them the way Father understands Dad's racing Chocobo, Millie; They are fragile and easily frightened and make a lot of noise sometimes because of it. Her lack of understanding is likely what lead to this situation.

  
"I'll fight you!" His hair is black as the void of space and so are his eyes. He isn't any taller than her and he's human. Human children don't typically reach her height until they are at least three years older than her. That makes the human who is confronting her most likely twelve to fourteen. It's hard to tell with adolescents. There are so many confounding factors; genes, body type, nutrition, environmental factors. He's probably moderately to severely malnourished, given the ragged state of his clothing. His aggression is apparent, regardless of age. His fists are clenched into poorly formed fists. Dad and Father would never let her walk around putting her thumb on the inside of her fist. Gloriosa wonder if he has any parents. Body language aside, there is the matter of his words. "I'll fight you, so fuck off!"

  
All around them people watch as he confronts her in the street. Foot traffic has stepped away as if casting a spotlight on the two of them: him with hunched shoulders and her with arms full of books from the shop.The crowd is silent, as if watching through thick glass. Dad would say they are civilians and the worst kind, the type that stand a stare. If even Dad, who defends the virtues of humanity as a whole, cannot defend such a person then they are truly not worth her attention.Gloriosa does not acknowledge them. She instead regards the boy who stands before her. He, as Dad would say, "at least has a spine."

  
"Foul language is the sign of an unrefined mental landscape," she says, informing the boy before her of her Father's wisdom. He doesn't appear to be grateful to hear a lesson handed down from a God. He shoulders only tense up as if he is preparing to strike her with his incorrect fist and poor stance. "It would be unwise to fight me." Aunt Tifa says she has to warn people at least once or it's unfair. Gloriosa thinks it's foolish to give away the truth of her abilities but if Aunt Tifa hears she didn't warn someone, she won't bring her Manju when she returns from Wutai. " I am many times stronger than you." The human in front of her doesn't take well to the news and swings his fist at her.

  
Gloriosa turns her body slightly, letting the blow fly past her. The miss doesn't kick up enough air to even ruffle her golden hair.She is now certain he doesn't have any parents or Grandparents. No guardian would let their progeny go through life with such terrible self defense. Such a slow and clumsy blow wouldn't have hit her at six, much less now that she's nine. He isn't even carrying a gun or materia to make up for it. Pathetic. Perhaps it is unfair to judge the way he over balances and sprawls on the street if he was never taught. The silent watchers make no move to help him up. They stand and let the buzzing of the electricity under the streets drone through the air. 

  
"Why did you attack me? I'm sure you have a reason. Is it because you're scared?" She feels the crowd around her flinch even as the dark haired boy pulls himself off the ground and charges back at her. She casually raises her leg and lets him ram himself into her foot. The gust of air from his rapidly contracting diaphragm leaves more of an impression than any of his attacks. It reminds of her Father slaying Zoloms to impress Dad and how their blood was the only part of them to make it near him. 

  
Gloriosa leans forward, shifting her weight and putting her raised leg on the ground, the dark haired boy still wrapped around it. It's the fastest way to impress upon him that he should stay down. Even so, it reminds her of when Dad threw men out of Aunt Tifa's bar once. She feels kind of bad about it, but Father said it's important that others know their place. Dad had said only in self defense, which meant he agreed. And if someone who isn't trained is going to be swinging above their paygrade, then he should know how and when to give up. Gloriosa tells him as much.

  
"Please don't attack people if you aren't trained. You'll only get hurt." The boy under her boot is now trying his hardest to lift her up by the foot and topple her. Maybe it's mean to keep him like this. Aunt Yuffie always helped her up back when she still got knocked down during spars. She lifts her foot and shuffles her books to one arm to pull him up. The boy tries to scramble away but she's viper-quick and has him up and on his feet before he has a say in the matter. "Are you hurt?" She can see blood welling on his scraped hands but it's been trained into her to ask at the end of every spar or battle where the opponent is not meant to be hurt.

  
"What the fuck do you care for," he spits out. "Walking around like you aren't here to hurt people." He struggles against her hand his shoulder and she lets him go.

  
"I'm not." Gloriosa holds up her books. "I'm here to get a new book. This one is on Molecular Biology and Genome Splicing. It has updated information on Crispr applications in HedgehogPies. This one is the newest copy of Malokov's Applied Physics. This is a book on Wutai religions." Father would wonder why she was bothering, but showing her books to someone new, having an audience....was kind of fun. The strange boy looked on as she shuffled through her literary findings. Marlene and Denzel already knew what she liked to read and had gifted a fair chunk of the books to her themselves. A fresh face was exciting. Maybe this is why Dad insisted she talk to other children.

  
"Uh huh, and what's that one?" He points accusingly at the sole unnamed book. "Is it a battle manual? Trying to find out how to destroy Midgar?"

  
"It's a cookbook. I want to make something for Dad for his birthday." This leaves him speechless. Gloriosa knows it's incongruous to have a cookbook alongside her more theoretical books but they're both forms of education. Perhaps it's that the book is old and well kept. Most of the old, well kept books she had were, in fact, military strategy and tomes of secrets that her Dad thought she wasn't reading late at night under the covers.

  
"Your dad has a birthday?" In this moment Gloriosa Strife, Grandaughter of the Calamity, is backhandedly impressed that he managed to live long enough to be as tall as her with no parents to ensure his safety.

  
"Yes, he does."

  
"I always thought your dad was, i dunno-I assumed he just sort of 'Happened' like a storm or something." Dad's name is Cloud, so Gloriosa can see where the mistake might be formed.

  
"Both my parents have birthdays. I think my Grandmother, Jenova, might not, though. I can ask her if you want." The stranger freezes up only to shift to a confused face and open stance.

  
"What's that even like?" He's completely forgotten to be afraid or angry at her presence. The crowd around them slowly seems to be doing the same, although they have not ceased their gawking.

  
"What do you mean?" 

  
"Does she knit socks or....bake evil cookies or something? Does she do grandma things?"

  
"Grandmother Jenova doesn't knit or bake. She connects my family and I to each other on a metaphysical level, raising us above humanity and making us gods worthy of deciding the fate of the Planet. I guess, she also tells my parents where I am when I'm lost. Are those 'Grandma Things'?"

  
"I guess the last one kind of is."

  
"I guess 'grandma things' are different when you're a God Of Destruction."

The dark eyed boy can only shrug."I guess so."

And now she has no idea how to keep the conversation going. It almost feels a shame to let it die but she can sense her Dad coming closer and he has a schedule to keep. There are deliveries to be made. Uncle Cid is going to teach her how to build a motor when he returns from Cosmo Canyon. 

"This was fun," she says frankly. "I liked talking with you. Maybe I will see you next time I visit with my Dad. I won't visit you if I am with Father, because we will fly past you." She sees hair as bright as hers approaching as her Dad cuts through the crowd.

"Goodbye, " she says because it's polite and ends a conversation effectively. Gloriosa lets her eyes linger on the face in front of her, committing it to memory silently before turning on her heel and walking towards her Dad who is looking down at her with a smile. His hand brushes her back as he ushers her through the crowd and she can feel his amusement.

  
"Did you make a friend, Glori?" His amusement grows as she considers the statement carefully.

  
"He attacked me unprovoked, but gave up when he started talking with me." She looks up at her Dad with unsure cat eyes. "I don't know."

  
"Sounds a little unorthodox, but I think there's potential." He smiles wryly. She does the same. "Maybe you'll be friends later."

  
"I hope so. Someone needs to teach him how to throw a punch. His form was terrible." Dad laughs as they walk and Gloriosa is content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and OC child name are taken from One Winged Angel's lyrics. Her name is Glory/praiseworthy which is just conceited enough for Sephiroth  
> Cloud is Dad because he won't let Sephiroth call him a Mother forever. Sephiroth's all about being Father though.  
> No one tell Gloriosa that Nibelheim is both a loving home designed to make sure she appreciates life on the Planet AND basically a 24/7 watch on someone who might decide to go SuperNova at any second and drain the life from the planet. The crew all grows to love her but a nine year old as tall as a 14 year old is unsettling, no matter how you slice it and they started this situation very aware of how this could all go wrong.


	2. Estuans Interius Ira Vehementi

The embers stretch into the emptiness of the open air like fireflies, like the Lifestream dissolving. The weathered skeletons of houses collapse and expire in plumes of heat. A blond fourteen year old stands before the sight with anguish in their heart.

Nibelheim is on fire.

The monument is scorching under the heat. The names of Old Nibelheim do not burn on the dark stone, but even so Gloriosa knows that they can feel the heat of their own demise. Blood floods the open doorways of the newest houses where Marlene's best friend moved in two years ago. The sky-blue like Dad's eyes, like calming summers-is drowning in the smoke. The screams of cows in the barn howling for relief sounds under the vast roar of the flames. Marguiriette's dog is barking at the house with its collapsed roof where her master has ceased to scream.

The house in the center. Her house. Her Home. Is on fire. 

She casts Blizzard. She casts it again. Again. The fire still smoulders away at the corner of the roof and the kitchen window where her ice hasn't reached quite. Even now the heat from the surrounding fire is melting her desperate efforts to save her home. There is a stuffed chocobo in the doorway, frozen and burnt, little more than tatters.

\----------------------

Cloud arrives, driving as quickly as Fenrir will go and curses himself for not allowing Cid to tinker. Anything-ANYTHING- to make it there faster, to be on time. Even from so far away he sees that he is too late but he can't give up. He crests the nearest mountain and sees the worst night of his life is repeating. Nanaki had taught Cloud about smoke signals once, about how puffs of smoke in patterns could send messages: Cloud can see the long, dark scream that his home is giving out. Only this is the home he built with his own hands for his child who was down there in the thick of it.

He feels Sephiroth's presence hone in on him as he reaches the edge of the town. When he lets go of the gas and lets the bike drop, key in the ignition, Sephiroth is standing there and doing _nothing_.

"Sephiroth! What are you doing?! Glori's in there!" He gave up genocide and destruction of the entire planet to have a kid and wouldn't even help her, huh? Well he could eat shit. He barely takes a step before the inside of his head is ringing with pain and for a crucial second he's far away from his body and the Planet. He trips and when he rises, Sephiroth, his husband in all but name, is there to raise him up, to hold him, to watch their home burn.

Sephiroth holds Cloud, back to chest. "Every god must have their domain, Cloud." Sephiroth's hand, gloveless and gentle, winds around Cloud's waist to press gently against his flat, toned stomach. "We must decide where to raise our second child and, as agreed, Gloriosa will be the one to make this choice." Even in the fury of his home burning down again the gust of Sephiroth's breath is a Thundaga down his spine, a tender and vengeful rage in his heart. "Let us see what she decides. Let us see the fruit borne of our union."

\------------------------

Gloriosa walks deliberately through the flames, like her Dad and Father. The flames reach out to ensnare her but find no purchase on her clothes. She burns hotter than they do. She will not be contained. She will not be burnt up like an offering to some fools that dared strike the home of gods, that dared attack the people that lived in her shadow, that loved and obey and trusted them.

The first sign of life is snuffed out as Glori turns a corner and is face to face with a gunshot. The uniform is familiar, SOLIDER 2nd class but an insignia she doesn't recognize. The smoke trails off the end of the gun even as Arwyn's corpse spreads blood in a puddle around her prided tiger lilies. The mercenary turns towards her and she is off faster than a shot of Death Penalty. She has their fragile life at the end of her blade before they can even see the glow of her eyes and she pins it like a butterfly. It's her first proper kill-purposeful and intentional- but she doesn't stop to let the blood stick to her physically or mentally. Some one did this to her home and she is going to make them suffer for it.

Her destruction is beautiful. Gloriosa is just that-Glorious. A lifetime spent training and learning is on full display. Like a dance she moves through the flaming wreckage of her life and carves rivers of blood that crisp in the heat of their own, fatal mistake. She is not yet in her prime, only fourteen but she outclasses all that she faces. They are just humans, not great beasts or forces of nature beyond control. They are numerous but so are ants and clay targets and blades of grass. Even so-they are monstrous. They are vile and she will not stand for it. And so, they will not survive the night.

"Why don't you just die you monster!" It's not a question but even if it were, she can't answer it. She's not the monster here.

There are a million things she could say here. _Does a monster have a home and friends? Does a monster treasure something as simple as an old book, a stuffed doll? Does a monster cry when you take it away?_

"You seemed insistent on turning this town," She turns the captive's head with a single thumb pressed into their clenched jaw until they are forced to face where Marlene is throwing buckets of water on the raging flames, "into a pyre. And now you will burn on it as sacrifice." The captive -man or woman, it doesn't matter- resists her once again as she forces their gaze back to her. She can feel the muscle under their skin tighten- with resolve or fear she doesn't know but that will be gone soon enough.

She drags the struggling filth to the incandescent fire, letting their feet touch the ground-danging the hope of fighting her inexorable pull in front of them. The blood under their skin is pumping so quickly, heart giving its all in the pursuit of freedom. Gloriosa shapeshifts her nails into claws just to prick them, just to let the blood jump ship on this doomed corpse as she forces them to face the fire. It was Marlene's bakery where she would lean over the counter and tweak Gloriosa's nose and now it would bake something else.

The flames lick at her golden hair only to give up their grip as Gloriosa extends her arm slowly. Her eyes catch every twitch of movement as the heat sears the masked figure. The fabric is smouldering when she hears something whizzing her way. Gloriosa drops the human into the fire face down, turning to knock the projectile away with her blade. It seems she hasn't yet disposed of the last of the spiteful heretics that came itching for a fight. The solider behind her is scrambling out of the fire. She kicks them back in. The crack of their bones harmonizes perfectly with the popping of the sap in the trees as they explode.

This stranger screams as their compatriot goes sailing into the flame, broken and wailing. They shoot at her again. She ducks low and closes in on them quicker than Chaos' claws. 

"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck! FUCK!" Gloriosa yanks the gun from them and holds them still as their comrade screams in agony. That nameless screams are lost beneath the burning meat and stench of despair, never to be written in stone. The last one remaining glares up at her defiantly. Their round pupiled eyes are purple and full of tears and hatred. 

"Tell me, filth. Did you cherish your friend? Did you _love_ them?" she holds the word in her mouth as though it burns her tongue. "Would you do _anything_ to have them back?!" She throws the gunman to the ground. Gloriosa has the burnt figure out of the burning bakery and mostly not on fire anymore before they can so much as aim their weapon.

"Realin! Realin, oh Planet." Gloriosa shakes the sounded man like a dog with a toy or a kid playing keep away. Realin shakes in her grasp, shock wracking them with tremors.

"Would you do _anything_ to have _Realin_ safe and sound?" She gives Realin a vicious shake. "Would you dedicate your life to serving me?" Shake. "Would you rebuild the town by hand and bandage every wound and Cure every burn?" SHAKE. "Would you bring back my home and my friends and my town!?"The man in her grasp moans and gurgles weakly. "Would you get down on your knees and _beg_ for forgiveness?! Well?

 **Do. It.** "

The gunsman before her drops to his knees, hands out pleadingly. Realin sways in her hand, ever nearer to the edge of death. Gloriosa does not understand why people hate her, hate their Gods so much, or why they hate what they fear and fear what they don't understand. But she sees the despair in the violet eyes of a fearful person and knows it for what lays in her own heart this day.

Gloriosa throws the burnt solider at his comrade, knocking them both prone. The gunman leaves their weapon by the wayside as they carefully gather the charred Realin to themselves and lift him up. Gloriosa is golden hair hanging in the flames and ash colored eyes frost bitten with hatred as one arsonist holds the other. "You survive on my generous mercy. Run along and tell the next person who suggests something like this what happened this day. Hold that despair in your heart and don't forget it. Or I will make sure you never forget again."

The flames consume the sight of them like it consumes the sweet summer grass. She hears them, still, moving away, past Aunt Tifa's summer home, into some sort of car and out of what remains of town. All around her, her home comes crumbling down.

It is only with the enemy gone that she lays down in the ash and wails in anguish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gloriosa Strife is 'Generosa' in allowing those dudes to live. Only let two go out of, like, a hundred and fifty? that's a pretty good score for a fourteen year old. It's no Entire Wutai Army  
> but she'll get there! She's quality, not quantity.  
> Glori's arrogant but she's not Hojo or anything. She liked having people around and invited folks to move in to Nibelheim. As far as she was concerned, those folks had it made, being under her benevolent hand. Too bad people kill what they fear and Cloud, Glori and Seph? Are very scary.


	3. desidero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud's the only thing keeping Gloriosa from becoming a huge brat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage you to play Groose's Theme for this

Cloud rolls his eyes so hard he's afraid they'll come out. Gloriosa stands before him, hair tangled and full of mud, much like the rest of her. Cloud's been a good dad, as far as he knows how. He remembers his mother's actions as hard as he can and when he encounters something she never had to deal with from him, he makes it up on his own. Occasionally he has to fight Sephiroth on it, literally and metaphorically. This might be a situation for literally fighting if Sephiroth, Scourge of the Planet, Self Proclaimed god, Planet Cursed Idiot, tries to side with their kid.

Their quiet, sweet kid. Who is holding a Tonberry.

Cloud resists asking how she found a Tonberry in the middle of Wutai's capital city. He's sure he would get an honest answer but he's not sure he wants to know right now. The last threads of his patience are wearing dangerously thin and it is only the assurance of his calm, placating presence that keeps Wutai from collectively panicking like a frightened mouse due to the fact that Sephiroth is not only armed and in Wutai, he is directly behind him and perusing the vacated streets like a cat watches an aquarium.

Cloud and Glori had been visiting when apparently Sephiroth became tired of decimating the monsters in the wilds and teleported into the Imperial Palace to menace Cloud, Yuffie and Barret. Barret cursed like his life depended on it when Sephiroth's hair infected Cloud's peripheral vision and a black feather disengaged from his pseudo-husband's wing and landed in his hojicha. Yuffie drew weapons almost as quickly as Barrett did. Gloriosa was the only person who was happy to have him crash the party and Cloud left her in the seeming safety of the Imperial Palace's interior while he lured the cat eyed man out of the palace and away from another international conflict. He should have known the family name was Strife for a reason.

"Gloriosa Hailstorm Strife," Cloud says, struck-and not for the first time-by how much he sounds like his mother. "You're not keeping a Tonberry as a pet." Gloriosa lowers her slit eyed gaze to the ground, clearly chewing on his rejection for a minute before looking back up at him, frowning.

"But, Dad, I don't understand why. If I am to judge the world, am I not responsible enough for a pet? Melloch has a pet." Cloud bends down just a bit-Planet's Blood! Gloriosa is growing fast- and sets his hands on her shoulders the mud squelches uncomfortably under his palms. Getting on their level to speak with them is helpful for reaching an understanding with your children, all the parenting books Tifa gave him say so.

"Glori, Melloch has a rabbit. Rabbits don't kill civilians in one strike if they get loose. Plus, I'm pretty sure Tonberries are just as smart as humans."

"I take good care of Melloch, though." Cloud comes up short, mouth agape and it's all the time Sephiroth needs to chime in.

"The lesser masses _are_ needy, Cloud. Gloriosa _has_ done well."

"Humans are not pets, Sephiroth." Cloud is just happy, if such a word applies here, that all the Wutains have retreated from the sight of Sephiroth so no one but the Planet is witness to Cloud's inner struggle to not throw Sephiroth into a Mako vat somewhere.

"Gloriosa, repeat the following sentence: Humans are not pets."

"Humans are not pets." It's clear the mud caked child doesn't believe it for a second and Cloud feels the start of a headache coming on. Gloriosa shifts the Tonberry beneath her arm. Cloud can now see it wriggling, attempting to free itself. Doubtless it's already cast Doom and Gloom on Gloriosa only to find the magic a no-sell. "But this isn't a human. It can be a pet and it is a pet. It's my pet." Gloriosa stamps her boot clad foot, sending clumps of mud tumbling off of her spindly, denim clad legs. Cloud pulls his muddy hands off his filthy daughter to cross his arms.

"I said No and that's Final." Cloud's been harassed by castle guards, had to fix Fenrir twice on the way here, got Sephiroth feathers in his food, had his monthly meet up with his friends ruined and now he is not going to stand for his eleven year old daughter trying to bring home a Tonberry and whining like a brat."No more arguments or you're not allowed to bring back any souvenirs from Wutai." The girl's eyes widen slightly.

"I promised the villagers that I would bring something back for them."

"Yes, you did." Gloriosa had been insistent on finding out what everyone around her wanted, and in the cases of a few folks assigning them a gift. The ashen eyed girl had given her word to ,not one but, multiple people that she would return laden with all the goods she could fit on the back of Fenrir. While it wasn't their credo like "Battle,Chaos, Survival" was, honoring her word was very important to her. How could one be a God worth the regard if she didn't do what she set out to? It was a close to sacred task in the little girl's view.

"Gloriosa," Sephiroth interjected, as eager to be a part of the parenting process as ever. "You either fight to keep something for yourself, a victory that runs further from your grasp with every passing moment. Or you don't overextend your reach, keep what you have and think about how you want to approach the situation next time." Cloud doesn't appreciate how that sounds like he's encouraging her to try again and do better (or worse) but he's grateful that he doesn't have to fight this war on two fronts.  
Glori straightens her back, a miniature mud soaked general in the making and grasps the Tonberry by the arms, still safely immobilized and unable to OHKO her. She holds it out from her body as if using it as a living shield and begins to march back to the Imperial palace, shedding dirt like an old skin.

"Little Storm," Cloud says with amusement pulling his face into a smile despite himself," you should probably put it back where you found it, not in the Palace." The little blond stops and turns her ashen cat eyes up to him.

"I did find it in the palace." It's the simple, matter-of-fact tone with which she says" A servant tried to trap me in a room with it when I asked where the kitchen was" that has Cloud's mouth agape. While Barrett did take time to teach her the appropriate way and time to smile he never taught her when non-enhanced people would frown. So her face is blank as she sourly announces, "There was no lotus candy in that room at all. Not even a sleeping agent or lethal poison, besides. They weren't very good at trapping me."

Sephiroth vanishes in a flurry of feathers, taking Cloud and Gloriosa with him, straight back to the inner chambers of the Wutain Imperial Palace. The next four hours of his monthly visit with friends are spent tracking down an assassin, preventing Barrett from killing the assassin before getting answers, preventing Sephiroth from killing the assassin before getting answers, getting the answers in question and listening to Yuffie ask the palace staff to clean up the stain on the floor once Sephiroth is done. Getting rid of the Tonberry takes the space of twenty minutes: three to find a common kitchen knife, ten to drive the thing to a less populated area and seven to watch it waddle away into the growing shadows of the evening with its kitchen knife. When Sephiroth and Gloriosa have taken to the skies and Cloud is driving home, appreciating the hum of his bike on the long stretches of open road as he ferries Gloriosa's presents back to New Nibelheim, he thinks about getting her a chocobo. She had wanted a pet, after all. Then he recalls how tightly her arms locked around the struggling limbs of that Tonberry.

_Perhaps, not._


	4. Disparatae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A four year old Glori visits her Ancient Godmother.  
> It goes badly

"Oh Cloud! She's adorable!" The ancient woman smiles and holds her arms out to touch the blond child. Her hands are soft and gentle, with dirt under the fingernails as she lays a friendly hand on the girl's shoulder.

Gloriosa starts screaming.

Instantly, immediately, she starts shrieking. The force of her full body cringe threatens to knock Cloud off his feet. The Ancient, Aerith, She backs up in surprise and knocking over her watering can. Even when she's safe in her Dad's arms, Gloriosa wails.

"No! No! No! No!" the girl continues to scream. Cloud's head burns as he feels Sephiroth approaching. When he finally arrives Cloud is wrapped in his arms, becoming the inner layer of a cocoon around their whimpering child. Gloriosa's terror abates with both parents there and her screams recede into mewls. He can only imagine what a picture they must make; the gentle flower keeper protector of the planet, the child that shrieked with unexplainable terror at her touch, the best friend of the flower keeper wrapped around said child and the worst enemy of the flower keeper, the enemy of all life on the planet, wrapped around them both.

Aerith has no words. Her hands hover around her slightly open mouth. She tries for a few words but no sound comes out. This is her first time meeting her Goddaughter and it's most certainly not how she was expecting it to go.

The small family leaves quickly. Cloud offers silent apologies with his eyes as they bundle up the girl and go. Sephiroth's got the crazy eyes on, a degree more venomous than they usually are whenever he spies her with Cloud. He breaks a flowerpot beneath his boot as he goes and Aerith's fairly sure it was on purpose but can't it in herself to be mad. Gloriosa seems to be refusing to look at her, those darling grey eyes closed tight.

With the light filtering down on the flowers and the dust motes in the air, the church seems larger, emptier than usual. She keenly feels the lack of Zach's smile. He would have made a joke and patched things up somehow. She finds she can't summon the same levity of spirit in the vast, cold silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all thought Sephiroth freaked out at the thought of Aerith? toddler Gloriosa can't stand to be touched by her.  
> RIP their friendship


	5. Chapter 5

He is looking at a little monster, a nightmare that should not exist in this way. What he was observing was a threat to the very nature of life. But then again he saw that every time he passed the polished glass of a storefront, so Vincent didn't feel especially strongly about it. He was more concerned about what was being created than what was being destroyed.

His granddaughter was aware of his presence, having seen and felt his arrival, but she carried on in her task silently. Vincent carried on in his silently, as well. It is easy to silently watch a child grow and direct her away from any catastrophic desires. An itch at the back of his mind asked how Hojo had failed that so spectacularly but Vincent ignored it.

Lucrecia's grandchild carved into the dragon with her blade, separating the leg from the slowly dissolving corpse. Watchful eyes observed as she chucked it into a small pile with the same Dragon's lower jaw and most of its tail. The girl severed the back feet before the lifestream could reach them but the front feet were not salvageable and with that the ashen eyed child wiped her blade clean with a series of powerful flicks. Seemed she still wasn't strong enough to clean it in one like Lucrecia's son. Vincent could still take her down if need be and the Chaos in him roiled at the thought of the battle but found no battle forthcoming and its hiss lessened minutely as Gloriosa effortlessly picked up her spoils and began transporting them.

Her destination was a cliff-side cave. It was barely more than a horizontal dip in the rock with a shallow lip above it but the cave seemed to be secondary to the cliff aspect of it. The tail, the feet and a single wing were heaped in a pile near the edge of the cliff and left to drain what little blood lingered in those parts. Vincent found himself at the ready to retrieve the dragon's tail like a lost balloon, should it slip over the edge but precision in all things was Sephiroth's way and it seemed to be a familial trait because Gloriosa's pile did not topple. The child,so young and so powerful, took the dragon's jaw to her barely there cave with complete confidence in her treasure's safety.

Gloriosa looked over at him as he approached, the full turn of her head as much of a greeting as he seemed likely to receive from her today. She turned back to her prize soon enough and began prying loose the dragon teeth only to set them in precisely angled rows. The dragon feet lost their talons and were similarly set aside. The membrane was cut from the svelte bones of the wing and laid gently near the mouth of the cave. Vincent observed her observing her work, inspecting her peculiar task's results for flaws. Blank face, perfect posture, not a hint of tightening in her hands, no tension in her legs: the results must have been acceptable.

She moved to the pile of discarded bones and crouched before them. Gloriosa then drew her blade and set the pommel against her shoulder, where she braced it against the ground. A petite hand grasped the dragon's jaw and drew it across the edge of the blade. The skin fell away, and the flesh soon after until there was nothing but sickly yellow bone.Vincent stood silently nearby as his grandchild took her blade and cut the bone of the dragon into strips and rounded those strips into thin rods. The dragon bone rods formed a pile next to the teeth and claws, one rod for every tooth.

Oh, so that's what she was doing. But then...

"The wing and the tail?"

"Adeline wants to make a drum. The butcher doesn't sell dragon." Two sentences; crisp and quiet, straight to the point. There had been much talking and deciding when Avalanche convinced Cloud to agree to Lucrecia's son's proposal and then more again when Gloriosa had been born. Somewhere in the conversation there had been worry that a poor reception among others could mean a second Sephiroth, eager to destroy the world for a perceived rejection. Friendship and Meaningful Conversations had been carefully planned lessons to reduce that risk. It seems at least one of those hadn't taken. Even as that could have disastrous consequences, Vincent found himself amused that careful plans of the most powerful people in the world couldn't sway the habits of a teenager. Vocally or her eating habits.

With no more bones to carve Gloriosa rose like a serpent, all sleek grace and danger. Her sword was slung onto her back just as gracefully. The noonday sun saw her delicately place her spoils on the dragon membrane and roll it into a tube for efficient carrying with one hand and sling a massive dragon tail around her shoulders with the second. She rolled her shoulders, minutely testing its weight around her neck. She shrugged one shoulder, letting the tail shift. A second roll of her shoulders must have seemed good enough as she began to walk away from the bloody cliff.

"Grandfather Vincent, would you like to have dinner with us?" Vincent didn't like Dragon Tail in the least but he found himself following along with a nod despite himself. His own granddaughter caught something and killed it and wanted to share it with him. It would be a fitting punishment for all that he has done to deny himself such a gift but it would hurt her more than him to be denied. Rejection's blade cuts deeper when it comes from those close, besides. He wouldn't give her anything to brood over. If it just so happened to delight him to share the meal with her and Sephiroth and Cloud, it was no concern of anyone but Vincent and Chaos.


	6. Chapter 6

Her Father slides the comb through her hair expertly. The suds catch in the teeth as it makes its way from scalp to roots to hair to tips. Gloriosa lets it happen, but not impassively. Her eyes are alight with curiosity at this new thing happening to her.

"Now, my glory, combing your hair is very important. Maintaining cleanliness is essential in maintaining a healthy body. Cleanliness, especially of the hair, nails and teeth can impact your appearance." Her Father touches her at different places as he says it. If the first one is hair-it's hair because Father said it and thought it to her before- then the one below hair is 'teeth'. The other one is 'nails'? "If you look ragged or unkempt, others will assume you are stupid or incapable and treat you accordingly. We are not stupid or incapable gods, my glory."

Gloriosa reaches up towards her hair but her arm is still too weak for that. She moves maybe an inch before she is exhausted. Her discontent wafts through the air. Her Father feels it and moves her arm for her. Gloriosa feels her hair under her splayed out fingers.

"There you are, my Glory. That is your hair. Soon you will be able to reach it on your own. Until then Mother and Father will take of it and you." Gloriosa lets her arm stay right where it is, mostly because she can't move it yet but also to enjoy the water running through her hair and under her nails. "I am very good at maintaining long hair. I choose to have this and you may choose for yourself as well. I will not restrict your or order you around pointlessly like _he_ would." Sephiroth lifts her up and up and up but not so very far because she's already out of the shallow water and safe in a thing that is less like water. She doesn't know the concept of 'dry' or of 'towel' yet, but she's a fast learner. "You will have a choice, Gloriosa. You will have many Choices."

Father presses his lips against her hair. "I will ensure it"

===

"Father, the city is full of electricity." Ashen grey eyes are fixed on the halogen lit sign proclaiming that the stand selling baked sweet potatoes is open for customers. Her dad is standing next to her as she casts her thoughts off into the distance like a satellite towards her far away Father. The humans around her focus on her dad, allowing her to converse unabated.

"Yes, it is, Gloriosa."

"Why?" It's more than a simple plea for information. It's a whine, a sub-vocal snarl of displeasure and pain. The snap and drone of electricity flowing through wires from batteries, from power lines couldn't be pleasant for anyone living here, could it?

"Civilians are overwhelmingly unskilled with materia. They substitute coal, steam or nuclear generated electricity for materia to power machines. Mako used to be used to generate power until I killed Rufus' father as part of wooing your Mother. The sound is unpleasant for those with superior hearing. Humans happen to be quite capable at making things unpleasant. I lived with it for many years."

  
Cloud flicks his eyes towards Glori at the pang of sadness. His eyes follow hers to the Sweet Potato Stand. Was she really this upset over a sweet potato? According to the twist of unhappiness that most certainly didn't belong to him: yes, she was.

  
According to Glori, she wasn't as good as her Father. He had lived with this for many years and she was having trouble with four hours. What an _incompetent_ god she was. "Gloriosa, capability of withstanding is important and you will be trained to do so. All things in time. If nothing else, know there is a reason we do not have electricity in the house. Purposeless experimenting and constant distress would be useless."  
  


"Here" her dad says as he hands presents the cooked tuber to her. She had noticed him crossing the road before but hadn't paid it any mind. It is less a fault of her awareness and more a faith in the security of a parent in visual range that had allowed her to not think to heavily about his movement enough for it to surprise her. She reaches up to grab it only to have him pull it back slightly. "Careful. It's hot." Gloriosa nods solemnly. Cooked foods are dangerous to hold, even if they are meant to be eaten from the hand. The knowledge is filed away as she takes it from her dad more sedately.

Gloriosa puts her hands on either side of the steaming vegetable and tries to listen for the sound of the crispy, buttered skin splitting apart above the whine of electricity dripping from the power lines and oozing from under the street. Her division of the food isn't perfect, natural lines of tension form irregularly in vegetables grown with fertilizers. This, just as the electricity, is not her fault. It takes a moment to sink in, as the steam from the sweet potato rises gently against her face, that neither of these is her fault. Even gods have natural fault lines where cell walls meet. relief and contentedness eddies in the spaces that shame and doubt have vacated. With a less weighty heart, Gloriosa holds the larger half of the potato up to her dad. He cocks his head in a wordless question.

"You are larger and need larger meals. This half is child sized and I will have that." He looks at her a long moment. As if clarifying she finds that she blurts out "You're big,"

Dad smiles and shakes his head as he takes his offered half of sweet potato. The sound covers up the buzz of electricity slithering under the asphalt and Gloriosa thinks that it is a perfect substitution. Far away, Father agrees.

===

"Father, how do you fly with only one wing?"

"I am only partially manifest. I died once and left most of my physicality with your Grandmother. I choose to manifest one wing and I chose to be able to fly with it." Gloriosa accepts it without question.

"Will I have to die to fly, too?" Sephiroth runs his mako green eyes over his daughter. His gaze is assessing and seemingly glacial. Gloriosa sees no coldness. She sees him making observations and choices and not lying to her offhandedly, like humans in Yuffie's palace sometimes did when she asked questions that made them uncomfortable.

"Can you shape shift yet?" Gloriosa's slit pupils travel from her Father to herself. She raises one well manicured hand and attempts to change it. She stands in silence as her Father comes to loom over her, a silver haired shadow blocking out the morning sun. The soft leather of his worn glove glosses over her meticulously combed hair. A thought is shared between them, the incommunicable somehow communicated. Gloriosa blinks and assimilates the information with a nod. Slowly her groomed nails grow into claws that envelop the tips of her fingers and back. She looks up to make sure her Father saw it. His smile is everything to her in that moment.

"You have done wonderfully,Gloriosa. You don't need to die to take to the air. You need only practice." His praise washes over her like sunshine, like starlight in the void of space and Gloriosa is joyful under her Father's careful hand. "Soon you will be the Glory of the Skies, as physically above as in other aspects. You are destined for great things."


	7. Chapter 7

"May I touch you?"

Melloch wrinkles his nose at first but gamely nods. Gloriosa lays her bare hand across the open expanse of his face and is greeted by silence. The other kids surrounding the wooden table look on as the quiet enlongates uncomofrtably. Gloriosa is strange but they've never been bored when she visits, and doubly so when she does something new. They regret letting her try when her brows furrow and her face scrunches up and she starts crying.

She isn't loud or even very high pitched but it's sort of eerie sounding even to Melloch who has known her the longest. It's almost like she never really learned how to cry and was just trying it out for the first time. Melloch flinches back a little at the first sob, and when she cries harder at the movement he takes his own hand and nearly slaps her in an effort to reciprocate. Melloch's brilliant plan doesn't pan out and the crying continues. Things go to shit when Sephiroth materializes in the room.

Sephiroth is the living incarnation of the bogey man to all known countries, religions, people and monsters. He is the thing that parents tell their children not to talk about because of an actual fear they might catch his attention. He decimated an army all by himself and won a war as a teenager. Sephiroth killed President Shinra after being the poster boy Solider First for more years than anyone could count. Sephiroth was the portrait of murder in the dictionary. Face like an angel, Heart of ice, he was terror incarnate and here were a handful of teens sitting around a shoddy wooden table rescued from a dumpster while his daughter cried.

As one, three boys and two girls had the same thought. Oh, Dear Gaia, they were all gonna die.

Like a bullet whistling past their eyelashes, they seemed to have been just missed by Sephiroth's (holy shit that's Sephiroth!) ire. His toxic green eyes focused on the cat eyed girl. Everyone else was forgotten.  
"Glory of the Skies, my Little Storm," Sephiroth's voices sends shivers down Melloch's spine as he sits, frozen with his hand on Gloirosa's cheek. He can see Adeline has already broken out into a cold sweat as the silver haired nightmare cooed down at his kid. "Come to Father, Gloriosa."

The blond girl stands, pulls her hand from Melloch's face and slips it easily into the grip of the man shaped monster she lovingly calls Father. She still cries even as she lets herself be lead out the door and into the street beyond. The crooked door swings closed on its own, and everyone scrambles up to their feet at once. Gloriosa's long gone by the time everyone actually gets to the door.

The kids disperse without any further fanfare, each needing the comfort of home or of family and fearful of the future they saw in Sephiroth's sudden shadow. They don't come back to their little hideout for almost a week. 

"What is wrong, Glory of the Skies?" He loves her and she loves him and she settles comfortably into the sensation of their minds nearly touching.

"I tried to feel Melloch but when I reached out there was nothing, and..." Gloriosa lets her tears fall. A few make it past Father's gentle fingers and eat away at the fallen pine needles on the ground.

"Melloch is a human, my child. He is not a God like you or I and he has had no ascension from humanity. He does not shun you, he is empty. All humans are. It is a failing of the race that we have overcome. You could never feel any of Cloud's friends, could you?" Gloriosa shakes her head. "Let it trouble you no longer, Gloriosa. There are many more worthy things out there." Just like that it's easy for her to trust in her Father and the silent promise of going home to her Dad's Nibelwolf stew and soft hugs. It's easy to put the emptiness of Melloch's being out of her mind. It's easy to disregard how hard, how far she extended her senses in the effort to feel him. It's less easy to shake the distant answer to her calling that echoed from across the continent.

It's nearing a month since Sephiroth took Gloriosa away when she strides into the room like nothing ever happened.She never tries it again.


	8. Chapter 8

"Father, If I am to judge the fate of the Planet, what is Little Brother going to judge?" Gloriosa holds her hand open above the bassinet as her sibling's eyes track her languid movement. Little Brother 's bassinet is handmade and brand new. It has no history attached. There is no blackened foundation or dried mako remnants in it. Her clear plastic bassinet had mako traces in it.Dad and Father had planned to use it for her future siblings before their house was burned.Her initial reaction had been irritation. It used to be hers and she was upset that it was being used for someone else, at first. Then Dad chided her lightly and told her that it helped establish a connection between her and and all family that used it afterwards. It had been Father's once upon a time, when he was in the care of Hojo and before Grandfather Vincent awoke, so it was never hers alone. Dad's cradle had been burned with Old Nibelheim, or" lost to the flames of his ascension from humanity," as Father sometimes put it. It had been wood.

Gloriosa wonders if having her Dad's cradle would have let her understand Nibelheim the same way he did, without focused lessons and more innately. Perhaps her little brother will feel more connected to the Planet and its life than her. Perhaps he will feel more connected to her and her Father and her Grandmother. She can feel the Presence of Grandmother Jenova in him, but it doesn't feel the way it does when she reaches out to her parents. It's similar to reaching an arm out of the lake only to find rain above the surface. Conversely, her Father feels like the silence and stark exposure of space, powerful and serene. Dad is a cyclone, a small circle of safety in the center of ever-raging wind and thunder. Once, only once, Gloriosa tried reaching out to the singular, lonely feeling across the continent that Dad told her was Aerith The Ancient and found it fragile and vast and ultimately disquieting. She never reached for that again. She has never asked her family what she felt like when she reached out to them. She wonders if her Little Brother will ever tell her, if they will share this secret between them without angst.

"Though his birth was not decreed, it is not decried. Your brother will find his own path in life. " Father is holding Dad as he rests. He was just as tired when he gave birth to her according to Aunt Tifa. Although she was not there for the birth, Gloriosa has read on reproduction and its after effects. Typically they only covered female centered reproduction. She understands that Gods are too rare to gather data on but she would have liked to know how it worked for her dad. It seemed arduous in any case. He seemed to want to do nothing but sleep and eat. He curled inward, protecting his stomach with a single arm as he reclined in Father's arms. Father pressed his lips gently to Dads ear, eyes on her and her sibling all the while. "We still await Cloud's word on a name, though." It's not a question. Gloriosa knows the answer to this, anyway.

"It is Nibelheim tradition to not give a child a name until they are nine days old. After which they are introduced to the family with a name and inducted as a family member." Father nods his head slightly. His mind brushes against hers with approval like distant starlight in far away galaxies. Even basking in success she is a problem solver, always trying to examine the hows and whys and make them better, fast, more efficient. Why wait to name her little brother, when he could name himself? "Nibelheim was not full of Gods. Maybe I can ask little brother what he wants to be named." Gloriosa ceases waving his hand in front of his face and her nail barely touches his head when she feels the draw and briefly ceases to exist.

Father is there when she reemerges into the world, hands pulling Gloriosa from her brother. Father's face is alight and Gloriosa quails before it. Dad is awake, watching, openly distraught. Gloriosa is confused and afraid and hurt. Why is her family upset? Why is she separated from her Little Brother? She knows how fragile humans are. And Gods or not, she remembers how fragile she used to be. She was careful. But it seems that she was not carefully enough. Failure and Shame wash over her, all the more powerful for their unfamiliarity. She pulls her hands in to cradle eachother in the center of her chest. She is unworthy to touch her Little Brother.

"Glori," It is her Dad. She doesn't move. "Little Storm, Come here." She doesn't want to but her Father's hand on her shoulders moves her. She takes two large steps, all the quicker to get it over with. The ensuing hug fills her mind with worry for her and relief for her and for her little brother. Her shame extinguishes, snuffed out by the care. She didn't so anything wrong, after all. Her Dad and Father aren't upset with her.

"Glori, are you okay?"

"Yes, Dad." Because she is ever moving forward, ever curious even under stress she asks "What was that?" Father is the one who answers.

"Reunion, it is the drive for all of Jenova's cells to regather to whence they came from." Father is holding Little Brother, eyes burning an inspiring green. "You have not experienced it with us, because we are self actualized enough to resist the pull of Reunion. Your brother is not." Father's eyes move down to the infant in the crook of his arm. A single finger traces the line of his minuscule jaw. "He will learn. As will you."

\-----------------

Yetzirah is all searing sunlight. Dazzling and magnificent, he smiles in fractals like shattered glass reflecting the ever shifting tide of humanity around him. He is loquacious. He is an outlier. Grandfather Vincent had never seemed unsure before Yetzirah , but she sees it whenever Yetzirah looks up at Grandfather in search of words and finds little. Grandfather Vincent, Father, Dad, Her; no one split the silence apart like Yetzirah. It makes the humans around them like them more.

Gloriosa had never understood how much humans truly spoke until Little Brother had developed complex speech capabilities and began "chattering the ears off anyone close enough to listen" as Yuffie put it. It is in comparison to the effusive outpouring of camaraderie that Gloriosa understands the hesitation and revilement with which the rest of her family is truly viewed. Once she is aware of it she hears it buzzing under the surface, an obnoxious electric charge droning on and on.

Gloriosa prods her mind against Yetzirah's. He gives half answers to her queries. His solutions make no sense.Presenting an illusion of incapability to attract others draws those who would prey upon you. Why should a God allow it?It is a discredit to the Grandchildren of the Calamity and the progeny of the Calamity should never hide who they were. Infiltration was for those who could not carve their own way and Yetzirah would be more than capable soon. The skill would soon be useless.  
Gloriosa sees her sibling smile and frown and twist his face into strange shapes and laugh at his reflection. He does not practice. Uncle Barret has never had to give him lessons on smiling. He has received lessons on how to not smile, frown or cry. He learns as is expected of a God but chooses not to use the skill. He chooses to "blow off" tactics with Aunt Yuffie for more time lingering in parks, surrounded by humans like a miniature sun.

Yetzirah shines so brightly and with such delirious intensity that it surprises many when he lashes out. Powerful joy begets powerful anger. Long ago human doctors attributed rapidly shifting emotions with a larger percentage of blood in the body than other fluids, based off some unwritten standard. For this reason such people were called Sanguine. Sanguinity is associated with happiness, passion and high tempers. If those humans had been exposed to real deities, such as Yetzirah, Gloriosa might have had a fifth designation to learn. To what fluid would those humans associate with the intensity of the younger Strife child? What would they speculatively point to to attempt to explain the fury of a WEAPON and the rapid shift to extreme melancholy. What would they carve into stone to rationalize the Joy of a God and the shift from gleeful malice to 'good natured ribbing'? Even his calm is intense, periods of languid dawn light to his blazing excitement or sunbleaching fury.

The nature of Gods is a mystery. The nature of Yetzirah the Second Born God is one she will happily unravel.


	9. Chapter 9

Cloud Strife wakes up with the sun in his eyes and know he is going to have one hell of a day. Not because he has a bad start, but because it's too good. He isn't already starting his day off on the wrong foot by being pushed off the bed, being targeted by blizzara or thundaga or firaga, or even simply waking with the sharp, green eyes of Sephiroth upon him waiting to start his best attempt at a blood feud for the day.

Cloud takes a fortifying breath and swings his feet over the side of the bed. Cloud's eyes look away from the simple task of getting dressed to survey the world outside his window. Outside he can see Rock and Flora scratching around in the dirt of their pen. The erstwhile villagers of New Nibelheim are already bustling around the town. Marlene's bakery already has wood smoke blooming from the chimney. That reminds him that they're out of bread.

Cloud's mako enhanced eyes scan the distance between his window pane and the bakery in question as if he could spot disaster waiting for him with his eyes faster than he could feel Sephiroth coming in his bones. However, necessity demands he takes the chance, so he finishes dressing, boots and sword and all, and heads downstairs.

Gloriosa is already at the table, breakfast of carrot juice and mayonnaise soaked rice already gone. He loves his daughter greatly but he's glad he doesn't have to watch her eat mayonnaise rice at seven in the morning. She turns her ashen eyes from her latest acquisition, the most recent medical journal in a line of them splayed out on the wooden table that Tifa insisted made the house cozy, to look him as he strides up to her.

"We're out of bread, I know." She nods in confirmation. Having had her own contribution to the morning conversation preempted she returns the favor.

"Father is doing something today," she informs her Dad. Because she grew up with Sephiroth and didn't have any working knowledge of how a typical parent would act she doesn't say "he's up to something." Cloud wonders, not for the first time, if he is doing her a disservice by raising her with Sephiroth. Lack of comparative normalcy was at least partially to blame for how Sephiroth himself had turned out, Planet only knows he hopes Glori turns out better. At least she's happy in her ignorance where Sephiroth was miserable. It makes all the difference in the world to him.

"Thanks, Glori. " Cloud settles a loving kiss on Gloriosa's golden hair and grabs the keys to Fenrir off the table. "Please, don't let your father harass the birds today. I'll be back later," he calls over his shoulder. As he does every morning he leaves his home he sets a bare hand against the frame of the door and recalls the searing heat of the world on fire. Cherishing his chance to say it he says " I love you."

"I love you, too, Dad." Gloriosa doesn't comment on the way his heart skips a beat or the breif flash of anxiety that sours the air, the same way she never comments on the nonsense her other parent generates. Cloud supposes he isn't doing a wonderful job of being the normal parent and counts his lucky stars that Tifa lives in town and can fill in the gaps.

Cloud makes it very nearly to the bakery without incident but his incredible luck has him caught in the middle of one of Joan and Hiddel's arguments.

Joan is standing outside the bakery as if intentionally preventing him from being able to get in and get out without a scene. Cloud has never had one conversation with Joan that he liked. He's glad she's the local plumber, she's excellent at her job and a shrewd business woman but the thing is...

"Mr. Strife, there you are!" Joan breathes a sigh of relief like the planet has answered her prayers, because to her it has. "Maybe you'll talk some sense into this fool, your holiness!"

She's absolutely convinced that he's not human. Somewhere along the line this grumpy, fifty year old plumber became convinced that Cloud is a physical manifestation of the planet created to "fix what man set awry." She moved out of her home in Mideel, invited herself in to New Nibelheim and got straight to work laying down pipes with barely an introduction and a gift of a pie. From his half decayed memories and Tifa's descriptions of his mom, he's sure she would have admired her devotion to the gods. He would like it too, if that 'god' in question wasn't _him_. Worse still, she never went without some sort of deference or without paying some sort of imagined dues. Granted it was very helpful when he was heavily pregnant and needed to get away from Sephiroth before he took the buster sword and tried to knock the man's silver haired head right off his neck. Outside of that, the bowing and scraping probably didn't help with convincing Gloriosa that Sephiroth was full of hot air and that they weren't actual gods, even if the Mako did stop his aging amongst other things.

Only barely better is the lanky, scar spotted man that Joan hopes he can "talk some sense into." As if he's ever convinced Hiddel to agree with him on anything. Hiddel hadn't moved into New Nibelheim for the love of the planet or for the chance to make a new life. He had moved because he wanted to be in the heart of the battle when "that poncy monster snapped and tried to destroy the world again." By Cloud's reckoning they had essentially the same goal: save the planet. And while Cloud couldn't fault Hiddel for wanting to stand between the planet and possible destruction, Hiddel, on the other hand, did have some objections to how Cloud chose to accomplish that goal.

"I'm not gonna listen to some Monster Fucker or his batty, old maid about what is and isn't safe for the town I live in." Hiddel had never seen a scrap of ShinRa's pro Sephiroth propaganda, so there was no grand betrayal when Sephiroth hoped on the jenova train to Murder City, just conplete cinviction that Sephiroth wasn't a human. An assessment which Sephiroth would wholeheartedly agree with. The only reason that he was still allowed to live in town at all was the fact that he never spoke badly to Gloriosa or Sephiroth. He counted them as Monsters and Cloud as a human. Which meant _Cloud_ was the one that should have known better than to bed a 'monster' or have a 'monsterling' child and was the only one who got the verbal lashing. "I'm setting the foundation down on the ridge and that's final!" At this point, he probably would have tried to storm off if he hadn't had his back to the door of the bakery with Joan, the second burliest non-enhanced person in town to pin him there with her knife of a glare. Since Joan was there, and Cloud having been dragged in, Hiddel was cornered with no escape from this argument. Seeing no way out physically, he decided to barrel through, metaphorically.

"I had the boys put down the markers last week, you had plenty of time to argue if there was a problem. You just can't come in here last moment and call things off because you've got a bee in your bonnet about stirring up trouble."

"I do not have a 'bee in my bonnet' you trumped up rock carver! Not unless that's your word for common sense. The ridge is a bad choice and you know it." Joan shakes her head like a bull shakes blood of its horns and turns to him. "Your Greatness, he wants to rest a forge down on the ridge. A forge! Something like that will need some very heavy pipework in case of a disaster and we can't reliably run water that far away from the center of town in a great enough volume to be effective if something happened. All the forge workers would be in serious danger!"

"Better than plunking it down in the middle of the town. If something goes pear shaped and the whole thing burns down it's not going to take the town with it if it's further away! Just because you can't manage your pipes properly doesn't mean we have to deal with a large scale forge smoking up the town square. Now," he puffs his chest out with his own self importance. "I had Lonny and Zell running all around New Nibelheim, looking for safe building locations. Because the people that lived here before had to have had a forge and lo and behold! They found a perfect spot out on that ridge." Hiddel stubbornly jabs his finger out towards the edge of town. "They put down markers and got it approved and we're putting a forge down, damn it all!"

Cloud doesn't know anything about infrastructure or pipelines and only knows a passing bit of knowledge on forges. If it hadn't been for Joan seeing him as the solution to all of life's problems this matter would have been brought to someone who could handle it by now. Cloud has done a lot of things, each stranger than the last but he has zero experience with this. He's pretty sure he's a Parent primarily and Delivery Driver, with monster slayer on the side, not the mayor.

As if Gaia has heard his complaints the bakery door opens and out steps Tifa, the actual mayor. Her left arm is in a sling, proof of the body's concessions to aging, with a bag of buns and a loaf of bread in her other hand. She fixes the assembled verbal combatants with an exasperated look and tucks the buns into her sling like she expects things to come to blows and wants her hand free.

"Hey Cloud, I see they finally dragged you into this, too?" Cloud only shuffles his feet awkwardly, shy of admitting how out of his depth he was here. Tifa just shakes her head. "Alright, let's go see this forge site." Hiddel and Joan trudge away from the bakery, with Tifa trailing behind. Tifa looks back when Cloud doesn't follow. "Aren't you coming, Cloud?"

He wants to say that he was just here for bread. But his voice fails him and he has to settle for a harried gesture towards the bakery. Tifa hustles back to grab his hand and pull him along behind her.

"Don't worry Cloud, I've got you covered. I've got a second loaf in the sling. Now you can help me with these two." Cloud follows Tifa resignedly. He glances back at the bakery he never stepped foot in to see at least five people watching him be pulled away through the front window. 

When they actually get to the proposed forge's location Lonny and Zell are hard at work. Only instead of setting anything up, they're uprooting stakes and markers. Hiddel is fuming mad, of course. Joan is crowing triumphantly, which sets Hiddel off even worse.Lonny and Zell are half shouted down under the roar of Hiddel's infuriated interrogation as they insist that this isn't where they set down the forge site. Tifa's trying to keep what little peace there is when he notices it.

Cloud edges past Tifa's sling bound arm to face Lonny, the older of the the two teens who stands nervously between Joan's imposing shadow and Hiddel's booming voice. All the conversation cuts off as Cloud plucks a wooden stake from Lonny's death grip with ease. His eyes flutter closed as Cloud holds it to his nose and breathes deeply.

"What? Does the Monster Fucker need a stake to chew on now?" Hiddel's surly grumble earns him a glare from Joan. Tifa's attention is still on the blonde as he takes a second whiff of the scent clinging to the wood.

"Is something the matter, Cloud?" Cloud nods and hands over the stake to Tifa who cautiously sniffs at it, herself. "It smells like vanilla? Cloud?"

"Sephiroth uses a full bottle of vanilla scented shampoo and conditioner every time he washes his hair. Not just any vanilla, Wutain Orchid Vanilla. That vanilla." The silence that latches on to the end of his sentence is both frustrated and disbelieving. Joan breaks it first with an aggrieved growl

"So, what? He's gotten bored of destroying the planet so he's causing fights about building foundations and framing two teenagers for it? What would he get out of that?" Tifa answers before Cloud has to.

"Sephiroth is a lot of things, but he isn't totally stupid. He knows that you,er, look up to Cloud and get his help a lot when he's in town. He most likely did this for the sole purpose of getting Cloud's attention."

"Well, I don't care to be involved in your freaky monster courtship displays or whatever this is! And to involve kids in it, too!" Hiddel's stink eye is reaching new levels of intensity. If it were a materia it would have been mastered on the spot.

"Oh, come on, Hiddel! There's no way Cloud could have known." Tifa tries to soothe him but he's already got his hands on Zell and Lonny's shoulders and is frog marching them back the way they all came.

"I'm sorry for the trouble, your Grace. You sure have your work cut out for you, keeping that walking Calamity under control. I'll be going now." The thing with gods and their worshipers is that they tend to be ignored when the worshiper is not in need. Joan traipses back to work on some pipe somewhere in town, leaving him and Tifa alone on the ridge near the cliff side.

"Well, this sure was a fine mess. Glad it got settled quickly though.Things always seemed easier when it was my dad doing them." The wind sweeps away Tifa's words, growing stronger as the moments pass. "I'd better head back, now. Who knows what else is happening in town." Tifa pulls the loaf of bread out of her sling and gently tosses it in his direction. He catches it with open palms, careful not to flatten it like so many other unfortunate loaves. As she leaves, Cloud loops the end of the bread bag around the keys to Fenrir and nestles them both in the space between the roots of a tall evergreen. He goes back to the falsely marked foundation and waits.

The acid kiss of Sephiroth's encroaching presence swells behind his eyes and he has his sword raised and blocking on instinct. Masamune comes crashing down lightening fast, drawing sparks. There is a long moment when Sephiroth's hair sways forward, engulfing Cloud's peripheral vision. The world narrows down to just Cloud, Sephiroth and the blades in both their hands. Cloud is annoyed, but there is a small part of him that hears the way Sephiroth purrs "Cloud" and wonders if Hiddel was right about this being Sephiroth's version of pigtail pulling.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and OC child name are taken from One Winged Angel's lyrics. Her name is Glory/praiseworthy which is just conceited enough for Sephiroth  
> Cloud is Dad because he won't let Sephiroth call him a Mother forever. Sephiroth's all about being Father though.  
> No one tell Gloriosa that Nibelheim is both a loving home designed to make sure she appreciates life on the Planet AND basically a 24/7 watch on someone who might decide to go SuperNova at any second and drain the life from the planet. The crew all grows to love her but a nine year old as tall as a 14 year old is unsettling, no matter how you slice it and they started this situation very aware of how this could all go wrong.


End file.
